Sometimes (like tonight) I cannot sleep thinking about all of the immigrants who over the years told me we were headed to the place our country currently finds itself, and how little people seemed to care because it was immigrants saying it.

This week, I wrote about how the liberation of Palestine would require widespread decolonial action. Through an analysis of Kneecap's body of work and their unapologetic solidarity, I write about how Palestine challenges the very world we live in today, for @theflytrapmedia.com (free post):

GET OFF SUBSTACK

anyway yes obviously you can get it as a poster

wherein @nicolefroio.bsky.social brings it yet AGAIN on the topic of music + colonization, and don't even get me started on the art this week -- this illo is phenomenal, just LOOK AT THE TEXTURE

EXCLUSIVE: A Democrat-led civil rights watchdog agency opened a sweeping investigation into the federal gov’s response to allegations of antisemitism on college campuses. The review may bring a rare dose of official scrutiny to Trump’s confrontations w/ universities. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

I really enjoyed working on this piece on horror, the haunted house, and the politics of housing with @freeblackgirl.bsky.social for @theflytrapmedia.com; what makes it even better is this KILLER illustration from @meowwwls.bsky.social This is the kind of cultural criticism I love doing!

Early @theflytrapmedia.com this week: The outstanding @nicolefroio.bsky.social on censoring bands who speak out about Palestine by an establishment terrified of decolonization.

Hopefully the whole Bari Weiss thing and Ezra Klein thing starts waking people up to the fact that corporate media is mostly populated with mediocre people who have made millions and gained unbelievable influence because they threaten nothing and tell wealthy people exactly what they want to hear.

If you want to understand open adoption, it makes sense to start with birth parents—yet studies of them are few. 2+ yrs ago, I began talking w/ birth mothers to try to understand what living in an open adoption is like for them, and what rights or options they might have if challenges were to arise.

I am already working on another story about wage theft in the H-2A program that will publish by the end of the year, and I’m mapping out stories for next year based on concerns and information provided by H-2A workers and farmworker organizers and advocates.

I’ve seen a lot of people posting about their concern regarding DHS presence at the Super Bowl. I wrote this piece in 2018 about this very thing. Essentially, there is a long practice of federal immigration agencies having a presence at the sporting event.

Happy Spooky Flytrap Friday!! You know what's spooky? The housing market! @sesmith.lol writes about how they are haunted by buying somewhere to live and how that millenial trend has spawned a new housing-related horror genre in literature: the-flytrap.ghost.io/housing-haun...

Journalist Mario Guevara is reporting that he will be deported to El Salvador today, after spending more than 100 days in detention after he was arrested on June 14 while covering a "No Kings" protest near Atlanta, GA. The charges against him were dropped, but DHS pursued deportation anyways.

no no the publishing industry is doing fine, why do you ask

so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

Have you read my latest investigation into gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program? You can here, or at @prismreports.org:

"Rodrick Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid. A U.S. citizen, he said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties."

Such good reporting on the exploitative H-2A visa program!

Have you read my latest investigation into gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program? You can here, or at @prismreports.org:

NEW: In my investigation for @prismreports.org published today, I report on how rare it is for women to obtain H-2A agricultural visas to work in the U.S. When they do, many report experiencing gender-based violence:

In case you missed it: I published another investigation into the H-2A agricultural visa program. This time, I reported on the gender-based violence experienced by women like Isabella, a Mexican worker trafficked to the South as part of the program & subsequently abused & robbed of her wages:

This is one of the excellent points @tinavasquez.bsky.social makes in her @theflytrapmedia.com piece about Kristi Noem. DHS can barely buy a fucking drink at the bar. the-flytrap.ghost.io/ice-barbie-k...

the misogyny question has already been well-covered by @tinavasquez.bsky.social for @theflytrapmedia.com:

“We need the work. It’s why we go to the U.S. It doesn’t matter what the situation is when we get there. We have to go because we need the money.” In an investigation, @tinavasquez.bsky.social uncovers the discrimination & gender-based violence that women can face under a temporary farmworker visa.

An investigation by @tinavasquez.bsky.social follows the story of Isabella, who was granted a temporary farmworker visa to work in the U.S., promised $12.67/hr. She did not know yet that she would be chewed up & spit out in the gaping maw of the American agricultural machine like countless others.

I want to do a little breakdown of this investigation I published today for @prismreports.org about gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program.

A 1st Amendment four-alarm fire: The United States is trying to deport a longtime Atlanta journalist who was arrested while reporting at a No Kings protest. @pressfreedom.bsky.social says ICE is detaining & targeting him for deportation "in direct retaliation" for his reporting on immigration.

If you read one article today, let it be this one: (🧵)

I want to do a little breakdown of this investigation I published today for @prismreports.org about gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program.

Extremely proud of @tinavasquez.bsky.social & this very sensitive, difficult, & deeply informative investigation highlighting Isabella, a former H-2A visa worker who thought she was entering the program for agricultural work but faced harrowing circumstances instead. prismreports.org/2025/09/24/w...

NEW: In my investigation for @prismreports.org published today, I report on how rare it is for women to obtain H-2A agricultural visas to work in the U.S. When they do, many report experiencing gender-based violence:

MY STORY IS BEING PUBLISHED BY @prismreports.org TOMORROW! It's been a very long road, y'all.

This week I have a gigantic investigation publishing about gender-based violence in the H-2A agricultural visa program. I hope you will all read it. (Please, for the love of god, read it.)

ICE killed a Chicago area man last week. His name was Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. He wasn't "the worst of the worst." He was a cook. ICE hopes we'll forget about him. We won't.

CDC temporarily revokes remote work approvals for employees with disabilities www.statnews.com/2025/09/16/c...

When ChatGPT first took off this was the use case that confused me the most. People said they “only” used it to write “first drafts.” That’s the most important draft! That’s the thinking part!

Given that Business Insider was publishing AI reporters, I guess this was inevitable?

This article has me thinking about this fantastic read from @tinavasquez.bsky.social on the way Mexican flags popped up all over her neighborhood in the aftermath of the election.

UC Berkeley gives the Trump admin the names of 160 faculty + students for a federal investigation into “alleged antisemitic incidents.” Judith Butler, one of the targeted scholars, tells me: "It is an enormous breach of trust... It's shocking. Did you consider not complying with this request?”

Corporate media bravely continues Charlie Kirk's legacy by committing to destroy the careers of anyone who disagreed with him: www.404media.co/comcast-nbcu...

Today ICE killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, an immigrant in Chicago who was shot during an enforcement operation. DHS' press release about his death focused on the agency's claim that ICE agents have seen a "1000% increase in assaults against them."

I’ve reported on children coughing up blood in family detention, where asylum seeking mothers were also sometimes sexually assaulted by male staff members. But I guess detention centers are only newly inhumane.

In a suit filed earlier today by three fired FBI officials, Patel and Bongino are portrayed as being so obsessed with social media that it could “risk outweighing more deliberate analyses of investigations."

It happened in June. It only feels like six months ago in this hellscape.

New York's full-throated defense of this abortion provider is something that I wish we saw modeled across geographies, systems, and industries. The people and institutions who are best funded, most powerful, and most able to fight fascism absolutely must refuse to comply, in advance or otherwise.

If you read one thing today, let it be this stunning piece of journalism from Laura Albast about the pro-Israel bias that exists across mainstream newsrooms that was edited over months with great care from my brilliant @prismreports.org colleague @sfatima.bsky.social prismreports.org/2025/09/09/j...

Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas died in ICE custody on Aug. 31 while detained at the Central Arizona Correctional Complex in Florence, AZ. The Mexican immigrant was only 32 years old, and his cause of death is unknown. He is the 14th non-citizen to die in ICE custody since Trump took office in January

Horrible news out of the South this morning. There was an ICE workplace raid at a Hyundai plant in southeast Georgia, with more than 450 immigrants detained. The BBC is reporting that South Korean workers were a target.